Evelyn Brent

Evelyn Brent (1899-1975), was an American actress on the silent screen. Josef von Sternberg paved the way for her to become a top star through her role as the tough prostitute Feathers in Underworld (1927). The dark-haired, aquiline Brent became a matinee idol with performances as exotic temptresses and vamps in such films as the epic war drama The Last Command (1928).


Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 5330. Photo: Paramount.


French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 615. Photo: Paramount.


Italian postcard by Cinema-Illustrazione, Milano, series 1, no. 17. Photo: Paramount.

Four years in England

Evelyn Brent was born Mary Elizabeth Riggs in 1899. 'Betty' was a child of 10 when her mother Eleanor died, leaving her father Arthur to raise her alone. After moving to New York City as a teenager, her good looks brought her modelling jobs.

She originally studied to be a teacher. While attending a normal school in New York she visited the Popular Plays and Players Studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey, a production cooperative for distributors World Film, Pathe and Metro. Two days later she was working there as an extra making $3 a day, using her original name, Betty Riggs.

She made her major debut in the silent film production of the Robert W. Service poem, The Shooting of Dan McGrew (Herbert Blaché, 1915) for Solax Studios. As Evelyn Brent, she continued to work in film, developing into a young woman whose sultry looks were much sought after. From 1916 on, she already had leading roles in East Coast film productions. In 1917 she joined John Barrymore in Raffles the Amateur Cracksman (George Irving, 1917), about a highly educated crook with entree to the best social circles. Barrymore had personally hand-picked her as his leading lady.

Evelyn Brent then took a sabbatical for health reasons and went to England. She met American playwright Oliver Cromwell who urged her to accept an important role in the George Bernard Shaw comedy 'The Ruined Lady' at the West End. The actress remained in England for four years. She performed for such film companies as Ideal and Stoll and with male partners like Clive Brook and Jack Trevor. In 1922, she even went to Spain as the star of The Spanish Jade (John S. Robertson, 1922) opposite Charles de Rochefort, distributed in America by Paramount.

She returned in 1922 to the US and moved to Hollywood. In 1923, she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars. Douglas Fairbanks Sr. signed her but failed to find a story for her; she left his company to join Associated Authors. Brent acted in a whole series of films at Fox in 1924, while in 1924-1926 she did a large number of films at Robertson-Cole and FBO, turning her into a popular actress in such B films as Midnight Molly (Lloyd Ingraham, 1925) and Broadway Lady (Wesley Ruggles, 1925).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 99/2. Photo: Paramount. Evelyn Brent and Emil Jannings in The Last Command (Josef von Sternberg, 1928).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 99/6. Photo: Paramount. Evelyn Brent and Emil Jannings in The Last Command (Josef von Sternberg, 1928).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4102/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Paramount. Adolphe Menjou and Evelyn Brent in His Tiger Wife (Hobart Henley, 1928).

A prostitute named Feathers

In the later 1920s, Evelyn Brent occasionally starred in A productions, mainly at Paramount. At Paramount, it was Josef von Sternberg who paved the way for Brent to become a top star through her role of the prostitute Feathers in Underworld (Josef von Sternberg, 1927), opposite Clive Brook and George Bancroft. Next, she appeared as Natacha Dabrova in the epic war drama The Last Command (Josef von Sternberg, 1928), opposite Emil Jannings and William Powell. In The Last Command, Brent's character saves Jannings' Grandduke Sergius during the Russian Revolution, at the expense of her own life. Jannings won the first Oscar for his part in this film and The Way of All Flesh (Victor Fleming, 1927).

Paramount used Evelyn Brent, William Powell and Clive Brook as stars in their first feature-length all-talking film, Interference (Lothar Mendes, 1928). She was excellent as a blackmailer, but the film did not live up to expectations at the box office. Despite that, Brent played major roles in several more features, most notably the Alaska-set romantic drama The Silver Horde (George Archainbaud, 1930) with Joel McCrea. The New York Times described the film in a critical review as 'dull and trivial'. And Brent's part in Paramount Pictures' all-star revue Paramount on Parade (Edmund Goulding, a.o., 1930) was only small.

Overall, the transition to sound film ended her promising future. I.S. Mowis at IMDb: "While Evelyn's voice proved no detriment to her success in talking pictures, the declining quality of her films did." Paramount annulled their contract with Brent, who then spent the remaining years of her film career in cheap Westerns and 'quota quickies' for RKO and later for poverty row studios, such as Monogram and PRC. She also appeared in vaudeville shows.

Wikipedia: "She photographed attractively opposite leading men who were also at advanced ages and later stages in their careers: Neil Hamilton in Producers Releasing Corporation's production Dangerous Lady, Lee Tracy in the same studio's The Payoff, and Jack Holt in the serial Holt of the Secret Service, produced by Larry Darmour for Columbia Pictures. Her performances were still persuasive, and her name was still recognizable to moviegoers: theatre owners often put "Evelyn Brent" on their marquees."

In the early 1940s veteran director William Beaudine cast her in many B-films, including Emergency Landing (1941), Bowery Champs (1944), The Golden Eye (1948), and Again Pioneers (1950). After performing in more than 120 films, she retired from acting in 1950 and worked for a number of years as an actor's agent. Evelyn Brent was married three times: to film executive Bernard P. Fineman, to producer Harry D. Edwards, and finally to the vaudeville actor Harry Fox for whom the foxtrot dance was named. They were still married when he died in 1959. Evelyn Brent died of a heart attack in 1975 at her Los Angeles home. She was cremated and interred in the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills. In 1960, she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.


Belgian postcard by S.A. Cacao et Chocolat Kivou, Vilvoorde / N.V. Cacao en Chocolade Kivou, Vilvoorde.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4004/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Paramount.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5400/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Paramount.

Sources: I.S. Mowis (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 8 August 2023.

The Last Command (1928)

The Last Command (1928) was a silent film directed by Josef von Sternberg, and written by John F. Goodrich and Herman J. Mankiewicz from a story by Lajos Bíró. Emil Jannings won the first Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the 1929 ceremony for his superb performances in this film and in The Way of All Flesh (1927). It was the only year that multiple roles were considered. The supporting cast includes Evelyn Brent and William Powell.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Foreign, no. 99/1. Photo: Paramount. Emil Jannings in The Last Command (Josef von Sternberg, 1928).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3579/1, 1928-1929. Emil Jannings in The Last Command (Josef von Sternberg, 1928).

More than a great actor - he was a great man

In 1928 Hollywood, director Leo Andreyev (William Powell) looks through photographs for actors for his next film. When he comes to the picture of an aged Sergius Alexander (Emil Jannings), he pauses, then tells his assistant (Jack Raymond) to cast the man. Sergius shows up at the Eureka Studio with a horde of other extras and is issued a general's uniform. As he is dressing, another actor complains that his continual head twitching is distracting. Sergius apologises and explains that it is the result of a great shock he once experienced.

The film then flashes back ten years to Czarist Russia, which is in the midst of the Revolution. Grand Duke Sergius Alexander, the Czar's cousin and the Imperial Russian general, is informed by his adjutant that two actors entertaining the troops have been identified as dangerous 'revolutionists' during a routine passport check. He decides to toy with them for his amusement. When one of them, the theatre director Leo Andreyev (Powell), becomes insolent, Sergius whips him across the face and has him jailed.

Leo's companion, the beautiful actress Natalie Dabrova (Evelyn Brent), is an entirely different matter. She intrigues Sergius. While Leo is sent off to prison (from which he escapes) Sergius takes Natalie along with him as a consort despite the danger she poses. After a week, he gives her a pearl necklace as a token of his feelings for her. She comes to realise that he is at heart a man of great honour who loves Russia as deeply as she does. When she invites him to her room, he spots a partially hidden pistol, but deliberately turns his back to her. She draws the weapon, but cannot fire. Despite their political differences, she has fallen in love with him.

When the Bolsheviks capture the train on which they are travelling, she pretends to despise him. Instead of having him shot out of hand like his officers, she suggests they have him stoke coal into the locomotive all the way to Petrograd, where he will be publicly hanged. This however is a ruse to keep him alive and, when everyone on board is drunk, she helps him escape, giving him back the pearl necklace to finance his way out of the country. Sergius jumps from the train, then watches in horror as it tumbles off a nearby bridge into the icy river below, taking Natalie with it. This moment is when Sergius develops his head twitch.

Ten years later, Sergius is reduced to poverty, eking out a living as a Hollywood extra. When he and the director finally meet, Sergius recognises him. Leo, in an ironic act calculated to humiliate him, casts him as a Russian general in a battle scene. He is directed to give a speech to a group of actors playing his dispirited men. When one soldier tries to incite a mutiny, telling the general that "you've given your last command", he whips the man in the face as instructed, just as he had once struck Leo. Losing his grip on reality, he imagines himself genuinely on the battlefield, besieged by enemies, and passionately urges his men to fight for Russia. Overstraining himself, he dies, inquiring with his last words if they have won. Moved, Leo tells him they have. The assistant remarks, "That guy was a great actor." Leo replies, "He was more than a great actor - he was a great man."


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 99/2. Photo: Paramount. Evelyn Brent and Emil Jannings in The Last Command (Josef von Sternberg, 1928).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 99/6. Photo: Paramount. Evelyn Brent and Emil Jannings in The Last Command (Josef von Sternberg, 1928).

The second greatest secret in film history

The background story for The Last Command had a real-life inspiration: a General in the Imperial Russian Army named Theodore A. Lodigensky whom Ernst Lubitsch had met in Russia, and again in Los Angeles, where he had opened the Russian restaurant The Double Eagle on Sunset Boulevard after fleeing the communist revolution. Lubitsch encountered the ex-general once more when the latter appeared in full uniform looking for work as an extra at $7.50 a day, the same rate as Sergius. Lubitsch later told Lajos Bíró the anecdote. Under the name Theodore Lodi, Lodigensky went on to play a handful of roles between 1929 and 1935, including Grand Duke Michael, a Russian exile who is forced to work as a hotel doorman in Down to Earth (1932).

Lajos Biro wrote the script The General and it was given to director Josef von Sternberg to direct. The source of the script for the film has been termed “somewhat controversial”. Paramount attributed the original story entitled The General to screenwriter Lajos Bíró, the scenario to John S. Goodrich, and the titles to Herman J. Mankiewicz. But Paramount gave Sternberg a free hand with The Last Command (1928) when his latest film Underworld (1927) proved to be an instant success. His significant additions and alterations to the plot are incontestable and form the basis of his claim to 'ultimate authorship' of this cinematic masterpiece. And indeed, Sternberg made some brilliant changes to frame the main story as a flashback, giving the narrative a quality of retrospection, with the implications of loss from the beginning. It was re-titled, The Last Command

Josef von Sternberg had met his lead actor Emil Jannings in Berlin in 1925. Jannings was the foremost actor of the Ufa, and the two had established a friendly rapport. In 1927, the Ufa, Paramount's sister film company in Germany, yielded Jannings and producer Erich Pommer to make a number of films in Hollywood. Jannings starred in director Ernst Lubitsch’s The Patriot (1927) and in Victor Fleming’s The Way of All Flesh (1928), but his performance in The Last Command (1928) surpassed these two productions.

The Last Command was among the most ambitious films Sternberg ever shot. The shooting was completed in five weeks. The following three years experienced the industry-wide transition from silent to sound technology, during which Sternberg completed the silent films The Last Command (1928), The Drag Net (1929) and The Case of Lena Smith (1929), and his first sound film, Thunderbolt (1929). Though these films were praised by critics for their distinct style, none achieved great box-office success.

The release of The Last Command was stalled when Paramount executives reviewed the film and discovered that Sternberg had inserted material portraying Hollywood as heartless and cynical. They further complained that he had historically misrepresented the Russian Revolution, including recognisable portraits of Trotsky and the young Stalin. Only under duress from a wealthy Paramount stockholder did the studio relent and distribute the film. Despite opening to remarkable critical success, the box-office profits never materialised.

Despite its commercial failure, the film garnered a nomination for Best Original story, and Emil Jannings took the Oscar for Best Performance at the 1st Academy Awards. American playwright and filmmaker Preston Sturges declared The Last Command "perhaps the only perfect picture he had ever seen." Film critic Leonard Maltin awarded The Last Command four out of four stars, calling it "A fascinating story laced with keen perceptions of life and work in Hollywood. On Sternberg's handling of Evelyn Brent's Bolshevik Revolutionary Natacha Dabrova, Film historian Andrew Sarris wrote: “[She], like all Sternbergian women, remains enigmatic beyond the demands of the plot. Her perverse nature operates beyond good and evil, beyond the convenient categories of virgins and vamps. What is unusual about Sternberg’s direction is that…he seeks to control performances not for the sake of simplicity, but for the sake of complexity.”

Michael Elliot at IMDb: "The 'Rosebud' from Citizen Kane is perhaps the greatest secret in film history but I think Jannings' nervous head shake has to be the second one. Early on we're told that this head shake is due to some accident and when it's finally revealed what that accident was it comes as a great shock and is an incredibly powerful sequence. The final thirty-minutes of the movie is like an out of control train, which is funny because the majority of the footage takes place on-board a train. As the revolution begins the film starts to pick up energy and drama and it just keeps growing and growing as the thing moves along. It's clear von Sternberg planned it this way because he just keeps pounding the viewer with one twist after another and the suspense just keeps building until that final secret is revealed. "


French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 91. Photo: Paramount. Emil Jannings in The Last Command (Josef von Sternberg, 1928).


French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 119. Photo: Paramount. Emil Jannings in The Last Command (Josef von Sternberg, 1928).

Sources: Michael Elliott (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.